Cobian Reflector information

Cobian Reflector will problably be released under the Mozilla Public License Version 2.0 soon. Stay connected.

The suport forum has been discontinued under the mean time. I have been getting a lot of spam and DDOS attacks so the maintenance work to keep the forum alive has been too much.

I will be updating this page with the most frequently asked questions instead. Please do NOT contact me by mail with technical questions.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: Is Cobian Reflector still under development?
No. The latest version is 2.7.20. Future versions may be released under the Mozilla Public License version 2.0, but I will not be directly working on it.

Q: Is Cobian Backup still under development?
Well, I sold the source code back in 2014 to James Sweeney. I haven't heard anything from him since then so I don't know about his plans. I am thinking about creating a whole new different backup product. It will be nothing like Cobian Backup, but it will have many of CB features.

Update: the new backup product is called Cobian Reflector and is now available on this site.

Q: I have a question about Cobian Backup or Cobian Reflector. What can I do?
Cobian Reflector will probably be released as Open Source soon, with its own support channels. Do NOT ask me questions privately by mail, they may never get answered.

I cannot connect to a Filezilla FTP server
There are some problems when connecting to Filezilla servers due to design issues with the FTP library I am using.
Solution 1 : If you can, use another FTP server (or MUCH BETTER, use SFTP if possible).
Solution 2: Use Cobian Backup instead of Cobian Reflector. The FTP library I use there doesn't have this issue with Filezilla.

Should I use FTP or SFTP?
If you have the choice, use ALWAYS SFTP.
SFTP is the superior protocol. FTP is a very old protocol (even with security additions like FTPS). It's harder to configure with a firewall due to its very nature of using two channels, there are a lot of implementations (many of them non-standard, etc).

I Cannot copy my OneDrive files
One drive files (and other cloud services) maintain the files offline by default. The files are downloaded as requested. The files are ofthen not on your computer but they are only a placeholder for the actual files.
The program can download the files automatically for you , but only if you are not using Volume Shadow Copy for that task.

How can I exclude a directory like ".vs" in any place of the source?
Add this REGULAR EXPRESSION to a exclusion mask:
.*\\\.vs\\.*

Task doesn't start because of sleeping computer
Q: I have a task that is programmet to start at 3:00 AM but it never starts
A: Chances are that the computer is asleep. If the computer is in sleep or hibernation mode, all processes and programs are sleeping as well and the program won't work.

Q- But I have checked Options - Engine -Prevent sleeping!
A- This prevents that the computer falls asleep while the task is being executed. But f the computer is already asleep the task won't even start

Q- Is there any way to wake the computer up before the task starts?
A- If your BIOS supports it, you could program a timer in Windows Task Manager (taskschd.msc ) to wake the computer up before the task starts. This is outside the program's functionality so don't ask me how to do that :)

Q- Anything else I could do?
A- Set the timer to a time when you surely know that the computer is awake. You could also check the option to "Run missed backups" to start the task when the computer is available.

Some directories don't show the timestamp in the name
The names are there. Explorer hides the real name for some special directories like Desktop or Documents. If you open a console window and type "dir" you will see that the timestamps are there : "Documents 2022-02-03 10;33" even if explorer is only showing you "Documents". You can exclude the file "desktop.ini" if you want to prevent this.

I cant use GMail for log mailing
* You need to tell GMail to accept mails from "3rd party applications". In some other cases you can create an Application specific password:

Create & use App Passwords
If you use 2-Step-Verification and get a "password incorrect" error when you sign in, you can try to use an App Password.

Go to your Google Account.
Select Security.
Under "Signing in to Google," select App Passwords. You may need to sign in. If you don’t have this option, it might be because:

2-Step Verification is not set up for your account.
2-Step Verification is only set up for security keys.
Your account is through work, school, or other organization.
You turned on Advanced Protection.
At the bottom, choose Select app and choose the app you using and then Select device and choose the device you’re using and then Generate.
Follow the instructions to enter the App Password. The App Password is the 16-character code in the yellow bar on your device.
Tap Done.
Tip: Most of the time, you’ll only have to enter an App Password once per app or device, so don’t worry about memorizing it.

Error when uploading file with TLS and vsFTPd
When uploading files using the server vsftpd you get some times the error 426 "Failure writing network stream" even if the files are uploaded OK.
This seems to be a problem with vsFtpd 3.0.3 or newer. If you have control on the server site, just add these lines to the file vsftpd.conf:

strict_ssl_read_eof=NO
strict_ssl_write_shutdown=NO
require_ssl_reuse=NO

and restart the server.

Problems with directories names which end with a trailing space
I see some errors while trying to backup some directory or file with a name that ends with a trailing space, for example: "C:\My directory ";

This is a limitation of the Windows Api. The file system supports those kind of names (and tose are files that often are created by MacOS".

From MSDN "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces (Windows)":

Do not end a file or directory name with a space or a period. Although the underlying file system may support such names, the Windows shell and user interface does not.

Problems can arise when a Macintosh client creates a file on a Windows NT server. The code to remove trailing spaces and periods is not carried out and the Macintosh user gets the correctly punctuated filename. The Win32 APIs FindFirstFile() and FindNextFile() return a filename that ends in a space or in a period; however, there is no way to create or open the file using the Win32 API. So this will be causing a lot of errors, caused by Windows API.

Q: My extension is on the no compression list, but file gets compressed
I have the extension *.xxx in the list of No compression, but te files get compressed anyway. Why?

You can't both have the cake and eat it. You indicated to use compression, so the files get compressed. No compression means, include the files in the archive BUT use a level 0 compression, i.e., just store these files without compressing them.

This has been the standard behavior of any archiver since the late 80s: zip, arj, rar, winzip, winrar, you name it.

Q: Error Copying $RECYCLE.BIN
My backup of my drive gives me an error like this: "An error occurred while copying "D:\$RECYCLE.BIN" to "F:\}": Access is denied

$RECYCLE.BIN is a system folder used by Windows to store the files that are deleted by ALL the users. By default, a user doesn't have access to another user's recycle bin. That's why you get this error.

This folder AND the folder "System Volume Information" should always be excluded from a task.

Q: Error Copying System Volume Information
My backup of my drive gives me an error like this: "An error occurred while copying "D:\System Volume Information\" to "F:\}": Access is denied

System Volume Information is a folder that's found on every computer partition. It's a hidden system folder that your computer's System Restore Tool uses to store its information and restore points. This folder is used by Windows for system-level functions. That's why you can't access it.

This folder AND the folder $RECYCLE.BIN should always be excluded from a task.

Q: I get the message "The safe mirror directory does not exist or is not accessible"
A mirror is NOT a backup and should NEVER be used. If you, for example delete a file on the source by mistake then it will be deleted from the mirror as well and you will NEVER get it back. Why does this option exist? Don't get me started on this...Don't ask... :oops:

In order to somehow limit the potential danger of this function, the program uses a "safe mirror directory". Its a kind of Recycler bin that is used to store the files that are deleted from the destination when they don't exist on te source anymore.

The program checks i this directory exists AND if the user running the backup can write to it. Often that is not the case. The safe mirror directory can be configured on Options-Advanced. But there is no guarantee that the task can write to it anyway. Bear in mind that, if running as a service, the user running the task is often NOT the same than the user operating the UI.

So what can you do to solve this problem?

The easy way:

1- locate the directory used for the safe mirror (Oprions-Advanced) or change it to some other folder.
2- Change the permissions to that folder to (again, the easies way) full permissions for all users

The not-so easy way: if you know what user is running the task, you can somehow limit the permissions to this folder.

Q: Engine not found
Cobian Reflector (and backup) have several components. The user interface (the part you see as an icon on the system tray) is just that, a user interface and does nothing else than to interact with the user. It cannot backup nor it runs any schedule. The part that works, is "the engine", an invisible process t hat can be run as an application or as a service. If you see the message "Engine not found" and no list is shown on the user interface then the cause can be:

* If the program is working as an application, then perhaps you have started the user interface only. This doesn't starts the engine. You should start the program called "Cobian Reflector Application". This starts the engine AND the user interface.

* If the program is installed as a service, then perhaps the service cannot be started. This can happen for several reasons, like, for example, if the account running the service has been installed with a password that has been changed. If that is the case, jut reinstall the service entering the new password.

* The engine has crashed. This should not happen, but if it did, you will find some info using the Event Viewer. Use the Cobian Reflector forum to open a case.

Q: The program cannot access a network file or directory
The easy way to solve this is:

Install the program as an APPLICATION, not as a service. Problem solved.

The more advanced way:

Now, if you want to run the program as a service then, if you can read (and care to read, which you should do), then you may have seen the warning that was shown when you installed the program: If you install the program under the local system account, then you won't have access to any network resources. That's a security limitation of Windows. So, you need to chose another "normal" account to run your service.

You can also use impersonation to run your task. This is not a perfect solution, but could work well many times.

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